38 



CALIPHS OF BAGDAD. 





and afterwards the less honourable profession of a 

 robber. This dynasty was overthrown by the arms 

 of the powerful Tartar chief Ismail Samani, whom 

 the Caliph Motamed had invited to his assistance. 

 In the year 873 he passed the Oxus with 10,000 

 cavalry, so poor that their stirrups were of wood, 

 and so brave that they vanquished the Soffarian 

 army, eight times more numerous than their own. 

 For several generations the Samanides exercised a 

 turbulent and precarious rule over Khorasan, Seis- 

 tan, Balkh, and the Transoxian provinces, includ- 

 ing the cities of Samarcand and Bokhara ; but they 

 were at length swept away by more potent usurp- 

 ers. The Bomides or Dilemites, so called from 

 their ancestor Buiyah, a fisherman of Dilem, were 

 their rivals and their enemies ; and about the middle 

 of the tenth century the Persian throne and the 

 sceptre of the caliphs were usurped by three power- 

 ful brothers, Ali, Ahmed, and Hassan, on whom 

 the feeble Mostakfi bestowed the highest dignities, 

 and the pompous titles of Moezodowlah (Column of 

 the State), Amadodowlah (Pillar of the Throne), and 

 Rocnodowlah (Angular Stone of the Court) ; epi- 

 thets which discover the fallen majesty of the Sara- 

 cen emperors. Under this dynasty the language 

 and genius of Persia revived ; and the authority of 

 the Arabs beyond the Tigris may be said to have 

 terminated within little more than three centuries 

 after the death of Mohammed. 



Mesopotamia, with the important cities of Mosul 

 and Aleppo, were occupied by the Arabian princes 

 or sultans of the tribe of Hamadan. The poets of 

 their court could repeat without a blush, that nature 

 had formed their countenances for beauty, their 



